A New Age
by Gamemaker97
Summary: It's September 480 T.E, and new London, the world's first Traction City, has just moved for the first time. Following London's crushing victory when fighting the Arkhangelsk at Dry Ships Hill, other cities look to be following suit. An exciting age dawns, but all that Engineer Fever Crumb wants is peace. What will become of her in a new age of action, adventure and Traction Cities?
1. Under The Scrivener's Moon

**A/N: SPOILER WARNING - Don't read this story if you haven't read the Mortal Engines prequel trilogy (Fever Crumb, A Web of Air, Scrivener's Moon), unless you want those stories to be told for you in a thousand words. I will warn, there are major spoilers right from the beginning.**

**That aside, this is my first Mortal Engines fanfiction, even if it isn't directly linked to the original quartet. However, there are quite a few crossover moments between the series, as this story is intended to carry on the narrative where Scrivener's Moon left off.**

**I've tried to make it as Philip Reeve-ish as possible, although I'm not sure in places, so feedback would be highly appreciated.**

**Also, many thanks to my beta iamamywaterhouse for helping me with this!**

**So, without further ado, on with the story!**

* * *

**A New Age**

**Act I**

**Chapter One**

**Under The Scrivener's Moon**

* * *

The full moon was past midnight by the time Charley woke. As he lay on his back in the grass amidst the weak glow of the moon. The night was not too cold; it was only September, or the _month of the Scrivener's Moon_ as Fever and her northern friend had called it. Remembering Fever, Charley sat up to observe the low rise dotted with thorn trees where he lay. There was no sign of either Fever Crumb nor her strange, prophetess friend, Cluny Morvish.

Aside from Charley, only the burnt-out hulk of an Arkhangelsk landship showed human presence in these lands.

As Charley stood to his feet, the pain returned to his forehead, and he staggered forwards, clutching his wound with his hands. The bleeding had stopped, but the bone where Fever's bullet had grazed Charley's skull felt chipped beneath Charley's fifteen-year-old fingers. Dazed by the sudden pain, it took Charley a couple of minutes to remember where he was, and why he was alone on the rise.

Turning south, he looked down from the rise to see the burning remains of the Arkhangelsk empire. One of the greatest nomad tribes of the north, come south to the land that was once known as Britain to fend off a new, more terrifying threat; the Movement.

Led by Land Admiral turned Lord Mayor Nikola Quercus, the small but technologically advanced nomad empire known as the Movement travelled south three summers ago to conquer Charley's hometown, London. With the help of London's Order of Engineers, Quercus set himself an impressive goal; to convert London to become the world's first traction city.

Looking east from the charred remains of the Arkhangelsk armada, the large, lumbering mass of new London lay squat against the land. Silhouetted by the moon, this moving city was intimidating to all foreigners. Having spent the last three years apprenticed to the Engineers (who had been granted Guild status by Quercus), Charley had grown up along with the city. But he could understand why the traditional nomad empires were wary of Quercus' radical plans. New London - three tiers of housing and factories lumbering along on uncountable banks of tracks - defied the old ways of the nomads. But now only a few of these millennia-old empires remain in the area north of the Fuel Country, all of them eclipsed by the Movement's new London.

The sight of new London stunned Charley into action, and he forced himself to walk slowly down towards the city, despite the pain growing in his head. Beginning to regret his actions of the night, Charley's quick brain, which was always improvising his plan of action, began working on how he would explain the night's events to the senior Guildsmen - Doctors Mainbrace, Whyre and the rest - without giving away his real role.

Despite being just fifteen (well, Charley believed he was fifteen, after spending his early years parentless behind Ted Swiney's pub on Ditch Street, he didn't know when his birthday was, nor how many birthdays he'd had), Charley Shallow was an egotistic boy. After the Movement takeover of London three years ago, Charley found himself apprenticed to Dr Crumb, a middle-aged Engineer with connections to Nikola Quercus' head technomancer, living a life of relative luxury helping Dr Crumb with his work in the comfort of Crumb's expensive house on Bishopsgate, in the richer part of the old, static London, which was yet to be pulled down by demolition gangs.

Then last year, everything changed.

As autumn began, Dr Crumb returned home from a journey to Mayda - a city-state in southern Europa - along with his daughter Fever, who was previously presumed dead after disappearing from London after the Movement takeover. Being the child of a senior Engineer, Fever became assistant to Dr Crumb in Charley's place, and Charley found himself thrown out of his home in Bishopsgate to be trained with the other apprentice Engineers in the Engineerium.

But Charley Shallow wasn't put out by such setbacks. By the following summer, largely to due to his involvement in the exposure of an anti-Quercus terrorist organisation known as the London Underground, Charley had been given an honorary promotion, making him a fully-fledged member of the Guild of Engineers.

When Arkhangelsk forces and Movement defectors captured Chief Engineer Wavey Godshawk and young Fever Crumb, Charley Shallow made sure that Dr Crumb believed them to be dead, and he became assistant to Dr Crumb once again.

When the inevitable attack came from the Arkhangelsk Carns and the Movement defector Rufus Raven, new London was ready to fight. Now, twelve hours after the fighting ended, all opposition to the new city lies in tatters. The few battered landships that escaped London's wrath are all that remains of the once-great Arkhangelsk empire.

All opposition was crushed, and a young Arkhangelsk girl named Cluny Morvish, who had somehow become the figurehead of the rebels, was captured by London, scheduled for execution on the morning that Charley stood on the low rise, recalling the unbelievable sequence of events.

Sadly for him, when the Morvish girl was captured by London forces, seventeen-year-old Fever Crumb was found amidst the battlefield. Yet again, Fever would take away all that he had worked for! So Charley, who knew that Fever would want to help Cluny Morvish escape, hatched a plan.

He helped Fever free her strange northern friend, only to attempt to then alert the guards of their escape. Surely Dr Crumb wouldn't want his daughter back if she had been so kind to the enemy? Surely then Charley would remain as Dr Crumb's assistant?

But everything had not gone as planned. Fever had suspected Charley, and when the pair had finally confronted each other atop the low rise a mile from new London, Fever had managed to turn Charley's weapon against him, and slip away into the night with her northern friend from the Arkhangelsk.

As Charley, who had just processed everything that had occurred to him since the start of the Battle of Three Dry Ships, walked slowly through the marsh grass towards the new city, which was stationary as it salvaged supplies from wrecked landships, Charley began to formulate his plan.

He would return to the city, telling Dr Crumb that Fever had tried to escape with the Morvish girl. That Charley had tried to stop her, but Fever had wrestled the gun from Charley and used it against him. That Fever and her northern friend had escaped into the night. That it was all Fever's fault. Surely with all this evidence, Dr Crumb wouldn't want Fever back?

In the dark, the journey towards the motionless city, which was still salvaging materials from the ruinous Arkhangelsk fleet, took longer than Charley expected. It must have taken twenty minutes before he even reached a salvage gang, tearing usable chunks of metal from the side of a burnt-out landship. As he passed, two of the men, who were large, burly, and would have intimidated anyone who hadn't grown up around Ditch Street, blocked Charley's path.

"Where d'you fink you're goin', lad?" one of the men asked him. _A typical Londoner,_ Charley thought. _Untrusting of foreigners._ If only they knew who he was.

"Watch it, Bert," said the other worker. "Got an Engineer's coat, he has. Wouldn't want to mess with 'im, would you?"

The first worker frowned, struggling to take in Charley's appearance. A quick flash of Charley's Engineer's badge was enough to give Charley the desired effect.

"Ah, very well, Dr...?" said the first worker, now struggling to make a good impression on a man he recognised as his superior.

"It's Shallow," Charley filled in cooly, basking in the presence of his new-found power. "Dr Charley Shallow."  
"Most sincere apologies, sir," said the second worker, taking off his hat in respect. "Is there anything you'd need from humble ol' us?"

"There is one thing," replied Charley, making sure to use his careful, high London accent that he had learnt during his years with Dr Crumb to accentuate his power. "Who's in charge here?"

The first worker stepped aside and pointed to two uniformed men overseeing the salvagemen fifty yards down the slope towards London, where a monowheel was being stripped down.

"Those two down there, I think. Infantry commanders, I heard them say they were."

"Thank-you," said Charley calmly, ignoring the pain that continued to build in his head as he left the workers to their duty and headed over to the commanders.

As Charley neared the two men, he saw both men wore uniforms of the London Military, and the insignia upon their arms identified them as Captains. Charley could tell by their facial features that both were of northern descent; no doubt Movement officers who had inherited roles in the London Military after Quercus' takeover. One of the men, who looked to be around forty, was tall and stocky with sleek black hair that trailed to his shoulders. He held one of the most up to date standard-issue Bugharin rifles casually in his hands, and was paying a considerable amount of attention to the man on his right.

That man was younger by at least ten years, and considering that he was probably aged by war, was possibly as young as twenty-five. His uniform was stained blood-red, and his left arm was placed crudely in a sling. This was probably a war-wound from the previous day's fighting that hadn't yet been seen to by proper medics aboard the new city.

The older man looked questioningly at Charley as he arrived.

"What are you doing here, Engineer?" he asked, trying to exercise authority. "And whatever happened to you? Your head..."

It hadn't occurred to Charley that although the bleeding may have stopped, his appearance would still indicate severe injury, and when he raised his hand to his head, he could feel the dried blood on his cheek, rough under his fingertips.

"There was an escape..." Charley tried to explain to the officers. "The Morvish girl - you know, the ginger one, the prophet - and Dr Crumb's daughter."

"Fever?" said the younger man incredulously. "But she has only just returned to London!"

"That may be true, Captain, er, Farefax," said Charley, reading the Captain's badge. "But in the late hours of the evening, I spotted her helping Cluny Morvish escape London! I called the guards, of course, and I tracked her up to that rise over there," said Charley, gesturing to the land where he had lay ten minutes before.

"And then what?" asked the older Captain.

"I cornered them as they tried to run, to force them to return to London, but they fought back. Then Miss Crumb had wrestled the gun from me, and... And..."

Charley paused, his train of thought broken. That wasn't what had really happened. Charley had arrived on the rise with every intention of ending Fever's life, to prevent her from troubling him ever again. But he couldn't tell these London officers that. A possible prison sentence would follow. But luckily for Charley, there had been no witnesses to the confrontation, and his word, the word of an Engineer, would be all that these Captains could rely on.

But the Captains assumed that Charley, being no older than sixteen, had been troubled by the experience, which had clearly been traumatic for him, and had put two and two together about the bullet wound anyway, and took Charley's word as the gospel truth.

The younger man, Farefax, put a comforting arm around Charley's shoulders and spoke quietly to him.

"It's only a couple of hours until dawn," he began. "I'm sure Dr Crumb will be wondering what has become of his daughter."

Farefax paused, as though he was touched by the news of Fever's escape. "And we both need doctors a good night's sleep." Farefax laughed uneasily, wincing as his ribs hurt him.

"Come, Dr Shallow. The new city awaits our return."


	2. The Journey North

**Chapter Two**

**The Journey North**

* * *

The land north of Dry Ships hill was marshy, and by the time the sun began to rise on the cool September morning after her escape from London, Fever's white canvas coat was caked in mud.

"How much further, Fever-my-sister?" called Cluny Morvish, a tall, attractive-looking young woman with long rust-coloured hair, daughter to one of the Carns of the Arkhangelsk.

"Not too far," replied Fever with a touch of optimism. "The few remaining forts and landships seem to have gathered on the next ridge."

"Do we have far to walk?" asked Cluny again. "My legs are tiring."

"A mile or two more," replied Fever earnestly, and upon hearing Cluny groan, led her friend to a nearby low rise and sat down in the grasses with her.

"How is your sight?" asked Fever as she sat down, concerned for Cluny's well-being.

"Improving, I think," was Cluny's reply. "I can pick out light and dark. Nothing solid, but I notice shadows and silhouettes."

Fever smiled at this, and rested a conciliatory hand upon Cluny's shoulder. She was still learning how to console; the Guild of Engineers did not believe in emotion. They saw that a rational mind that was void of emotion would allow a person to achieve mental well-being. So, in her first fourteen years, she never needed to know how to deal with emotions, having grown up with Engineers. Even now, as Fever approached her eighteenth birthday, she still didn't really have the knack of cheering up others. But this was Cluny, and Fever made sure to put in the effort for her.

"So tell me again," asks Fever quietly. "Where did your injuries come from? What happened during the battle?"

"It was when London arrived," Cluny began, even quieter than Fever. "Our forces, which had been advancing well up to that point, scattered frantically. Marshal Raven, the Movement defector, was already dead, his traction castle had been destroyed the previous night, and the remaining Carns of the Arkhangelsk were indecisive of what course of action to take. Then came London's guns, our heart-fort was destroyed, and my father was lost with it..."

Cluny had to pause for a few moments as tears welled up inside her; since the battle, she'd had no time to think about life without both her father and her brother Doran, who had been killed by the Movement's Stalkers, resurrected men that were re-armed, re-armoured and fitted with computer brains, on the battlefields at Hill 60 during the previous summer.

Fever clung to Cluny's hand with both of hers, and Cluny rested her head on Fever's shoulder as she calmed herself.

"London's guns destroyed our anti-Stalker weapons, the tesla guns, that were housed in the heart-fort. The machines fired randomly out over the battlefields. I felt it, Fever-my-sister. I felt the white fire slide over my body and course through my bones. The last thing I remember before I passed out was the Stalker assigned to me, Master Shrike, reaching through the flames to take me to rescue. I don't know what happened to him. The next thing I remember I was aboard London, and you were frantically trying to get me out."

But Fever had given up listening. _Surely not the same Stalker Shrike_, she thought. _I hope there was a mistake._

Fever knew Shrike well. Or more accurately, she knew the man that Shrike once was. Kit Solent, an archaeologist, a man of London who was killed in aiding Fever's escape from an angry London mob in the final days of Gilpin Wheen's rule of London before the Movement coup. Solent's children had left London with Fever, travelling Europa as part of a moving theatre group, until Fever's run-in with the Guild of Engineers in Mayda-At-The-World's-End, and she left Fern and Ruan Solent behind her.

Ever since Shrike's creation, Fever had wished the Stalker dead. Stalkers unnerved her, and seeing an old friend up and about again was more than enough to drive her over the edge.

"Fever?"

"What?" replied Fever, snapping back to reality.

"What do you think has become of the Arkhangelsk?" asked Cluny. "I'm worried for my brother."

Fever shrugged, unsure of an answer.

"I don't know, Cluny. I don't know the ways of your people as well as you do. I only lived with them for less than a month, and for most of that time I was a prisoner."

Cluny laughed at this; her high, northern laugh that Fever loved.

"Marten will now be Carn," said Cluny thoughtfully. "He will have is own traction fort to run."

"That's a lot of responsibility," replied Fever. "Especially for someone so young."

"Marten-my-brother will manage," continued Cluny. "Carn aged just twelve. But it should never have been him. It should have been Doran to replace father as Carn."

"But Doran isn't here," said Fever.

"Thanks to the Movement and its Stalkers," snapped Cluny. "I don't know how you could put up with them, Fever."

"Look, Cluny," said Fever, suddenly on the defensive. "I didn't choose for the Movement to invade my city. I knew little of them until a week before the attack. But after fourteen years as an Engineer, my head was filled with reason. From my perspective, it mattered not who was running the city, as long as civil rest was achieved."

"But what of the new city?" asked Cluny again. "Surely you weren't in agreement with that?"

"Maybe I didn't fully agree with it," Fever replies, thinking hard about her time in London. "But my father, one of London's most respected Engineers, could see order and reason in new London. So if he could, who was I to doubt him?"

"I still don't see why anyone would build that hideous creation," shuddered Cluny, conjuring up her memory of the new city.

"The ideas behind it are quite rational," responded Fever, shocking Cluny. "It is merely a large traction castle, capable of sustaining itself without the _Kometsvansen_."

"But the _Kometsvansen_ shows the success of an empire! Without the _Kometsvansen_, a Nomad is powerless!"

"New London will carry the _Kometsvansen_ on its back, rather than having it trailing out behind it. Its tiers of housing will become its _Kometsvansen_."

"How will any of the Nomad Empires survive against that, Fever?" whispered Cluny, scared for the remains of her people's empire.

"There is only one way they can hope to survive against London," said Fever grimly. "And that is to become traction cities themselves."

"No!" said Cluny. "The Carns won't allow it!"

Fever shifted uneasily, moved by Cluny's anger.

"I wouldn't be so sure," Fever replied warily. "London's power will have made an impression on many of the Carns."  
Cluny sighed, frustrated and worried for her people.

"We must not become like them. But talk here in the grass won't amount to anything. We need to return to the Arkhangelsk. Are they still waiting, Fever-my-sister?"

Fever nodded before realising that Cluny would be unable to see her.

"They're still just two valleys away. An hour's walk, at most."

Fever's hand slipped into Cluny's as she led her friend north through the hills to the Arkhangelsk.


	3. The Suppression Office

**Chapter Three**

**The Suppression Office**

* * *

The sun was just creeping over the horizon as Charley Shallow and Captain Farefax were taken aboard London. Farefax was taken immediately to the hospital, but Charley was escorted by the second Captain, who he now knew to be called Captain Holt, directly to the Barbican.

"The Barbican?" Charley had asked when Captain Holt had told him of his destination. "Why the Barbican?" Charley knew that the Barbican was the palace of the old Kings of London, the mutant Scriven, who were a nomad tribe who claimed London two hundred years ago. Recognised by their skin, which was known to be speckled with dark splotches, an anti-foreigner group known as the Skinners eventually overthrew the Scriven Overlords a couple of years before Charley's birth. Since Quercus' takeover, the formerly Scriven palace had been relocated to the base tier of the new city, to be Quercus' new residence. So why on Earth was Charley going to the Barbican?

"We are going to the Barbican, Dr Shallow," explained Captain Holt as the two men walked through base tier.

"Because Dr Crumb, who I believe will be keen to know the fate of his daughter, is currently meeting with the Lord Mayor."

The Barbican was once a traction castle; the heart-fort of the nomad empire of the Scriven. After the Scriven settled down in London, the Barbican lost its wheels and settled down on Ludgate Hill, in the more affluent areas of old, static London.

And now, in the early hours of the day after London first moved, the Barbican looks almost... deserted. Where is everyone, thought Charley. No meeting with Quercus is being held here, for sure.

At the grand entrance, Holt was stopped by two guards, holding longswords.

"What's your business here, officer?" one of the men asked.

"We wish to speak to the Chief Engineer," answered Captain Holt calmly. "We believe that he was holding an audience with the Lord Mayor this morning."

The guard nodded, but didn't let Charley and Captain Holt in.

"The Lord Mayor is speaking with the Chief Engineer today," the guard replied. "But not at the Barbican. Dr Crumb will be in the Engine District."

Charley sighed. He disliked the Engine District; it was too hot, too dirty, and most definitely too loud. But it was the responsibility of the Engineers to run London's engines, so many of his working hours would be spent on the lowest tier. But today the engines would be off; London would still be gathering scrap metal from the remains of the Arkhangelsk monowheels, landships and traction forts. So for once, the conditions in the Engine District would be bearable.

The journey to the Engine District was short; London was only just over a mile long, and barely four hundred yards separated the Barbican and the large, circular chamber that was the Engine District's control room, situated at the exact centre of the city.

Inside, most control panels and levers were deserted; their crews of mechanics on leave, knowing that the city will not move for hours, maybe even days. At the exact centre of the room was Quercus' ornate padded chair, from which he dictated the activity of London's Godshawk engines.

Nearby to the chair was the Lord Mayor himself; Nikola Quercus. A surprisingly small and simply dressed man in his thirties, Quercus wore a plain tunic; definitely not in keeping with the traditions of the Movement. But times change, and a new age needs new rules and new traditions.

If any man was to be of the new age, it was to be Dr Gideon Crumb, Chief Engineer, head of his Guild. He is the voice of reason for the city, the mastermind behind Quercus' plans. Without Crumb, Quercus would never have managed to defeat the Arkhangelsk in the battle of Three Dry Ships. Crumb is responsible for getting London moving. Yet again, Crumb doesn't stand out as important; he looks like any other Engineer. He must be pushing past forty years of age, but he's almost indistinguishable from Charley at a distance. The same white canvas lab coat, the same shaven head (Engineers believe that hair is an unnecessary reminder of humanity's animal past), the same emotionless expression.

Around Quercus and Crumb were a few other senior Engineers that Charley recognised. Doctors Mainbrace, Collins and McNee amongst others. All of these men seemed to be engaged in conversation concerning navigation; during the journey north last night from the tent town that had surrounded new London during construction to Three Dry Ships, the city had been slightly veering left, so that the navigators had to alter their course every few minutes.

Now that the engines will be off whilst the city feeds on salvaged metal, the Engineers can tackle the problem. They appeared to have identified the source of the issue by the time that Charley arrived (a set of tracks on the left side), and were busy discussing how to best solve the problem.

With the arrival of the two newcomers, Quercus raised a hand to silence the conversation of the Engineers, and all attention was focused on Charley.

"What is it, Dr Shallow?" asked Quercus. "News about the escape?"

"Yes, sir," replied Charley, humbled for once. As much as Charley loved to flaunt any power he received, he knew that now would not be a wise moment to appear arrogant. "We send out search parties ahead, sir. I found them, too, sir, and I tried to, er..." Charley paused, trying to think of a suitable word. "I tried to _coerce_ them into coming back to London. But they were having none of it, sir, and Miss Crumb, she took the gun from me and she, er, she turned it against me, sir. I tried to stop them, but with my injuries, I couldn't stop them getting away, sir."

Quercus and the Engineers stared at Charley long after his tale was complete, as if waiting for more. When nothing else was said, Quercus addressed Charley directly.

"You have done well, Dr Shallow, and you shall be rewarded for your services to the new city."

Charley welled up with pride, expecting further praise for his deeds (he had spilt blood for the new city, after all), but Quercus then turned to his right to speak to the Chief Engineer.

"What do you believe we should do, Dr Crumb?" asked Quercus. "This is your daughter we are talking about, after all."

"Let her go," replied Dr Crumb emotionlessly. He had been shaken last night when he found that Fever had been brought aboard London; just as shocked as he had been when he heard Rufus Raven's false reports of her death. After two months in the north amongst the wilderness, his daughter had come back weak, full of emotion and deeply irrational. It had pained Dr Crumb to see Fever, a shell of the hopeful Engineer that she had once proved to be. Of course, a month or two aboard London would put her straight, but for those months, she would be a burden; a burden that London could not afford to have. If she could not benefit the city in some way, there was no place for her aboard it. As Dr Crumb had told Fever himself, less than an hour before her escape with Cluny Morvish, all individuals are expendable; they do not matter. All that matters is the greater good, and that London will prosper.

"Miss Crumb was most irrational after her time with the nomads," continued Dr Crumb. "London has no use of her. Maybe if she returns to us one day with a clear mind filled with reason, then London will have use of her. But in her present state, the nomad empires will have more use of her than us."

Charley, who had been listening to Dr Crumb's every word, felt his heart do a backflip. Dr Crumb was actually choosing him over his own daughter! This was more than Charley could possibly have wished for!

Pleased that his important role as assistant to the Chief Engineer was safe, Charley felt so sure of himself that he spoke up against his seniors as Crumb ended his speech.

"But what of Cluny Morvish?" he asked before realising his mistake of speaking without the Mayor's permission. But nobody chastised him, so Charley continued. "Surely her execution would be the most effective way of dealing with her and put a complete end to the Arkhangelsk uprising?"

"No, Charley," said Dr Crumb, which made Charley wince. He hated how, even though Charley was now a Guildsman, Dr Crumb insisted upon continuing to call him Charley, as he had done when Charley was just an apprentice, running errands for him at his old home on Bishopsgate. "There is no need to kill off the prophet girl. Who would listen to her now, after her so-called crusade failed against the might of the new city?"

"Also," continued Quercus, raising a hand to silence both Dr Crumb and Charley. "The nomad empires have now seen the power of London with their own eyes. They don't need a prophetess to guide them anymore."

"And the remains of the Arkhangelsk won't be stupid enough to listen to her, anyway."

"And don't you think, Dr Shallow, that enough life has been lost in the last two days already?" continued Quercus.

Charley, who still had a headache from the bullet wound and was severely sleep-deprived, wasn't really in the mood for deep, philosophical debates with the Lord Mayor in the early hours of the morning, but he made the effort to listen to Quercus' every word.

"It may not be much, but we should spare the Morvish girl as a message to the Arkhangelsk. To show that for all of its power, London is merciful."

"So, we're not going to hunt them down?" said Charley, disappointed. He had been hoping that after how he had been praised for his first search for the escapees, there would be a follow-up mission, giving him a chance to earn even more glory for himself.

"No, Charley," said Dr Crumb. "There won't be. The rational mind will see that there is no need. It is more beneficial if we leave them alone."

Dr Crumb paused for a moment, sensing Charley's disappointment, before continuing.

"Of course, I can understand why you would want more search parties to be sent out, Charley. A chance for excitement and adventure, a hunt for glory."

Charley looked at Dr Crumb, slightly shocked. Was his true motive that apparent? Maybe he had been a little too eager expressing his views. But Dr Crumb had never shown any sign of noticing Charley's hidden motives before... Maybe this was because he was so wrapped up in his work. Whatever the reason, Dr Crumb's words had shocked him.

However, Charley was put at ease again as the Chief Engineer continued to talk to him.

"In my youth, I had clamoured for such adventure, in a time before my mind was truly rational. I can understand why, at such a tender age, you would crave such adventure. But I believe that, with the help of the Lord Mayor, the Guild of Engineers has just the place for you."

Charley's face visibly brightened as he heard Dr Crumb tell him of a new job; a new responsibility. One suited to him. With the promise of glory. A chance for Charley to gain more of a reputation, to climb another rung up the ladder towards his ultimate dream; _Charles Shallow, Lord Mayor of London._

Quercus also seemed intrigued by Dr Crumb's words.

"What do you need my help with, Dr Crumb?" he asked curiously.

"Lord Mayor, with your permission, I wish to reopen the Suppression Office." answered Dr Crumb.

"What's the Suppression Office?" asked Charley, but neither Crumb nor Quercus heard him.

Quercus looked at Dr Crumb thoughtfully, as though sizing up Crumb's motives. Eventually he gave up, as though his train of thought had hit a brick wall.

"What would the purpose of the Suppression Office be?" asked Quercus. "All perceivable opposition to traction cities have been destroyed."

"Quite," said Dr Crumb. "But, if I was to list opposition to London, I would place 'Other Traction Cities' high on my list. This is the dawn of a new era. The era of traction. We cannot prevent the construction of other traction cities; now that their power has been demonstrated, no doubt many other cities will be trying to follow our example. Too many for us to stop them completely."

Quercus nodded. _If the latest rumours from Paris and Bremen are true_, he thought, _they already have._

"Too many have heard of the power of the traction city for London to be the only example. In a hundred years, I can imagine thousands of traction cities travelling right across Europa. In a world like that, only the fastest and strongest cities will survive. It will be the survival of the fittest."

"And so the purpose of the Suppression Office is...?"

Dr Crumb sighed.

"I know that we shut down the Office after it's primary objective, to prevent technology dangerous to the new city from being created, was completed," explained the Chief Engineer. "But now that we know that other traction cities are likely to become the greatest enemy of the new London, we must assure that London reaches the top of the food chain, so to speak. The Suppression Office will be used to hinder the progress of other traction cities, giving London time to make certain that it is the greatest traction city of them all."

"So the Office will need to dispatch agents to Paris, Bremen, Roma and Hamsterdam?" asked Quercus.

"Yes," replied Dr Crumb. "To all the major European city states. But also amongst the nomad empires. The logical next step for the nomads after their traction forts is a complete moving city; a jump that the Movement have just completed."

Quercus smiled, glad to hear praise for his realised dream of a moving city.

"I am assuming that you see Dr Shallow as an ideal operative, Dr Crumb?"

"Indeed I am," Dr Crumb replied. "You know as well as I do that many of the new generation of Engineers would willingly risk death for a little adventure, all in the name of furthering London's progress."

"I see," replied Quercus. "The issue, then, is not one of gathering personnel, but one of security."

To this, Dr Crumb nodded before answering.

"Indeed, but that is a matter that we should discuss alone at another time, away from the presence of my fellow Engineers."

Dr Crumb turned to his associates.

"Do I have your word, gentlemen, that you will not speak of this conversation to anyone?"

Various murmurings that sounded like "yes, sir" and eager nodding was the response from the other senior Engineers.

Quercus then turned to Charley.

"And you, Dr Shallow? You won't share your knowledge with anyone, will you?"

"Oh, no, sir!" said Charley, possibly a little too eagerly. "My lips are sealed."

"Very well, then," said Quercus, with a tone that clearly meant that he thought the conversation to be over. "Captain Holt, kindly escort Dr Shallow here to the hospital. He is in need of medical attention. He has wounds to heal, and a mission to prepare for..."


	4. The Council of the Carns

**Chapter 4**

**The Council of the Carns**

* * *

Marten Morvish had half expected this day to come. Ever since Doran had died, and he knew that he would become Carn in his father's place. He hadn't even yet fought a battle, but he was now Carn Morvish, head of one of the ten fighting clans that rule the Arkhangelsk. Aged just twelve, the task of running a traction fort was a tough one; the Morvish fort was only one of three to escape from Dry Ships Hill, and it was now the smallest remaining fort under Arkhangelsk. A fitting place for the Arkhangelsk's smallest Carn, then.

In the large, open chamber that was the great hall in the fort named the _Aurora_, Marten stood by, watching the day-to-day work of his people. Aged just twelve, he had no idea what to do. Father, who had died along with the Great Carn aboard the _Fury_ in the Battle of Three Dry Ships, had never bothered to explain properly the roles and responsibilities of a Carn to him. Now, with the nomad empire of the Arkhangelsk in tatters, Marten needed to learn. Fast.

All of his father's men were gone; all of those that Marten had known. Not very well, but enough for Marten to have turned to them. Even that crazed old technomancer, Nintendo Tharp, would have been better than no-one. But he didn't come back from Dry Ships Hill, either.

Then a fair-haired boy - a messenger, by the look of it - ran across the hall eagerly, searching out Marten.

"Carn Morvish!" said the boy, who was around Marten's age, or maybe a year of two younger. This shocked Marten; he wasn't used to being called Carn. His sister's crusade against London has forced him to grow up way too early. Twelve-year-olds should be learning how to hunt and fight, not how to run traction forts. It just didn't seem right.

"What is it?" asked Marten, trying to appear authoritative but failing miserably.

"A message from Carn Hamren, sir!" chirped the boy. "He's holding a Council meeting aboard his fort!"

"And when is this?"

"He wants you there as soon as possible, sir!"

"Alright. Thanks for letting me know."

Marten sighed as the messenger boy left him. He had hoped that his first few days as Carn would be easy going; a chance to settle in to the role. But it had only been less than twenty-four hours since his father's death, and already Marten was being thrown in at the deep end.

Slowly, he made his way wearily to the exit of the hall, and ordered the two men who stood guard there to escort him to the meeting. Looking back in retrospect, Marten realised that a meeting of the Council of the Carns would have been an obvious step to take, as the Arkhangelsk were currently leaderless.

The traction fort named the _Black Dog_ was the largest of the three forts that were still under Arkhangelsk control. It sat a mile from the _Aurora_, and Marten planned to make the short journey by mammoth, complete with his accompaniment of guards.

As he sat at the base of his fort preparing a mammoth for the journey (he still wasn't used to other people doing jobs for him; his servants sat by and watched him), Marten was annoyed to find another messenger boy calling out for him.

"What is it now?" asked Marten tiredly, keen to be leaving for the _Black Dog_.

"Sir, it's your sister, sir!" said the boy eagerly. "She's returned to us! Cluny Morvish lives on!"

Cluny? As soon as Marten had heard of his father's death, he had counted her off also. _Maybe if Cluny is alive, she will be able to aid me as Carn_, thought Marten. _Maybe I won't be entirely alone, after all._

"Where is she?" said Marten, in a tone just as eager as the messenger boy's.

"She's aboard the Black Dog, sir, awaiting your arrival."

"Excellent," said Marten, barely containing his joy. "Thank-you, boy."

It only took five minutes to reach Carn Hamren's fort, the _Black Dog_. The fort towered in front of Marten, almost twice the size of his own. He would always have steered clear of places like this as a child; when the _Kometsvansen_, or Comet's Tail (the name given to the traction forts, landships and camps and that followed the Great Carn's heart-fort), slowed to a halt, Marten would always have avoided forts like the Black Dog when out playing with kids of his own age. Far too many guards; they'd never have risked staying too close. But now, as Carn, the guards are all oblivious to him; he can wander in and out of the fort freely.

Departing from his mammoth, Marten hurried inside, filled with the hopes that he would meet his elder sister again. He was not disappointed.

He asked the first guard he saw, and he said that Cluny and her Londoner friend were on the balcony just outside the _Black Dog_'s great hall, where the Council meeting would be taking place. He rushed up the stairs three at a time (which, considering his short, twelve-year-old legs, was quite an achievement) until he came out in the late morning sun on the balcony at the front of Carn Hamren's traction fort. And then as he looked across at the tall, slender girl twenty yards on his left, relief washed over him and he broke into a run.

"Cluny!" he cried as he ran into his half-sister's embrace. He was fighting back tears, so much was the relief at finding Cluny alive.

"Don't worry, Marten-my-brother," said Cluny soothingly. She could feel Marten trembling in her arms. He was like a small child again.

Marten's head was full of unanswered questions about how Cluny managed to escape from the Londoners (or even how she managed to survive that final, almost suicidal charge that she led against London), but for the time being, the questions can wait. All that mattered to him was that he wasn't alone in the world anymore.

After what felt like five minutes, Cluny pulled away from him.

"Don't you have a meeting to attend?" she asked Marten.

"Yeah," said Marten unenthusiastically. "But Carns are allowed a few of their aides to come with them to the Council. Would you-"

"Of course I'll come, Marten. But only if Fever can come too."

Marten sighed inside. He had never been keen on Fever, with her strange, London ways. Looking at her here, maybe she wasn't so bad, though. Yes, she still had a white, although muddy, canvas coat identifying her as a member of the Guild of Engineers, but her hair had now dropped to her shoulders and she was still wearing that odd amulet that Tharp had given her to heal her of the injuries that she had attained at Hill 60 when escaping Rufus Raven three months ago. Maybe Fever was alright. Either way, seeing her here with Cluny made it clear to him that Fever had played a part in making sure that Cluny was here today. And so he would honour Cluny's request.

"Sure," he said. "Fever can come too."

Carn Hamren's great hall was large and open, decorated with ornate stonework and a high, vaulted ceiling. Barely a soul was in the room, except for the four guards that were stationed at the two entrances, all of which were holding swords, and the twenty or so people situated around the round table in the centre of the hall.

As Marten approached the table followed by Fever and Cluny, he could see that eight seats had been set around it, all of them upholstered in red velvet. Seven of the seats were filled, and Marten found himself being gestured to the final seat. Fever and Cluny stood over him behind his chair, just as the aides of the other men hung behind them, too.

Looking around the table, Marten realised that the other seven men must be the other Carns of the Arkhangelsk. Well, that said, most of them weren't much older than him, ageing between thirteen and sixteen; at sixteen, the men were deemed old enough to join the military. Nearly all the Carns and their elder sons had been killed when the _Fury_ had been destroyed with all hands, and only Carn Kubin, a short man with greying hair and a long beard, remains of the old Council. He didn't recognise many of them, and the fact that there were eight of them threw him, too; the Council had ten members; the leader of each of the Arkhangelsk's ten clans.

"Gentlemen, now that we are all here, may we get on with business?" said the young, blond-haired man that Marten knew to be Piotr Hamren, owner of the Black Dog and leader of one of the Arkhangelsk's largest clans.

"Where are the rest of us?" asked Carn Kubin.

"Alas, some of us never made it back from Dry Ships Hill," said Hamren, who was lucky to have escaped himself. A Captain in the military himself at the age of twenty-three, he was on the front line when London arrived. "The entire bloodline of both Carn Persinger and the Great Carn were lost."

Murmurs were sent round the table at the realisation of this fact. Cluny, who was leaning on the back of Marten's chair, began to realise the full implications of London's power. She had attended Council meetings before with her late father, and she recognised a few faces who had been aides to their fathers in those meetings, and of course, she knew Carn Kubin.

Looking round from Marten, there was a young boy aged around fifteen that Cluny had never seen before, but the contours of his face told her that he was the eldest son of Carn Eriksen, the youngest member of the old Council. Also around his age was Frederic Larsen, who sat on Hamren's right. He was younger than Cluny, and she remembered him hovering over his father's shoulder during previous meetings of the Council, looking moody and uninterested. Even though he is now a Carn, he still appears as though he doesn't care, leaning back in his chair and staring out the window.

On Hamren's left is another familiar face; Aleksandr Masgard. Cluny remembered his father, who was a gloomy, pessimistic man. She was somewhat pleased that tall, strong, handsome Aleksandr had taken his father's position, his vibrant smile and somewhat messy mop of dirty blond hair adding a touch of the excitement of youth to the usually serious Council. Of course, he was well respected. Even at the age of twenty-one, General Masgard was the most senior officer to return from the Battle of Three Dry Ships.

Standing behind him was Masgard's younger brother, Viktor. He was only three months older than Cluny, his eighteenth birthday having just passed. Slightly taller and more gangly than his brother, Viktor still wore that same vibrant smile and playful look in his sky-blue eyes as his brother, albeit beneath a slightly longer mop of light-brown hair. Cluny found herself having to pull her eyes away from Viktor; she couldn't deny that she'd once had a bit of a thing for young Masgard, before he went off with Carn Kubin's daughter. Looking across at young Miss Kubin, Cluny couldn't deny that she was pretty; an elegant figure with sleek blonde hair. But that didn't stop her from being a vain, conceited young woman that Cluny detested.

Cluny was glad when Carn Hamren continued to bring the Council back to focus.

"Now," said Hamren, drawing the attention of the other Carns. "Usually, when the Great Carn dies, power is given to his eldest son, as is tradition. But this time, for the first time in over two hundred years, he has no living relative."

"So what happens now?" asks Carn Larsen unenthusiastically.

"Well, last time the Great Carn had no bloodline to continue, the remaining members of the Council voted on which one of their number should assume power. I propose that we do the same thing."

Nods and murmurs of assent went up around the table, including Marten's seat. He thought that a vote would be the right thing. It was all very well to fight against other nomad nations, but they should not fight amongst themselves for power. Especially not at a time when they are so weak.

"Very well, then," continued Carn Hamren, pleased that his plan had been approved. "Would anyone like to nominate themselves to run for the position of Great Carn?"

"I will," said Aleksandr Masgard confidently, and from looking at the reaction of the other Carns, he could see that a few of them would be supporting him.

"So will I," said young Carn Eriksen bravely, but without the confidence that Masgard had shown.

There was silence for a few seconds before Hamren spoke again.

"I'll step forward myself then, too," said Carn Hamren, glancing over at Masgard.

There was another pause.

"Anyone else?" asked Hamren, and Carn Larsen spoke up.

"I think Carn Kubin should nominate himself," he said quietly, and everyone looked on at him, waiting for him to explain himself. "He's the oldest and most experienced of us, and the only remainder of the old Council. He knows the ways of the Arkhangelsk better than any of us."

Murmurs of assent spread around the table, but Carn Kubin shook his head.

"I don't want to become Great Carn," he said. "The Arkhangelsk will be better off in the hands of someone younger and more enthusiastic than myself. And I have no sons; only two daughters. So when I am gone, the rest of you will have to vote again."

"Anyone else?" said Carn Hamren again, and when nobody replied, he continued. "Very well, the vote will be between Carn Eriksen, Carn Masgard and myself. Should we say that we're allowed five minutes to discuss our decision?"

He was greeted by nods around the table.

"Very well, then," he said. "And remember, you can't vote for yourself."

Marten turned round to Cluny and Fever.

"Who should I vote for?" he asked quietly. "I don't know who to choose."

"Not Eriksen," said Fever quickly. "He hasn't got enough experience."

"I wasn't planning on choosing him anyway," replied Marten. "But who should it be? Masgard or Hamren?"

"Masgard," said Cluny, quickly, who was looking over at Viktor again, who was in conversation with his brother.

"Why, Cluny-my-sister?" asked Marten.

"He's the strongest fighter," Cluny replied convincingly. "In these desperate times, the Arkhangelsk will need all the military strength it can get while our empire finds its feet again."

"I agree with Cluny," said Fever, backing up her friend.

"That's settled, then," said Marten. "I'll vote for Masgard."

"Ok, you've had your five minutes," said Carn Hamren, once again attracting the attention of the Council. "Now, we must vote for our new leader. Hands up for Carn Masgard," he called.

Four hands went up; those of Carns Hamren, Kubin, Morvish and Eriksen. Half the Council had voted for Masgard. Nobody else could win now, but another Carn could tie with Masgard, if the other four Carns were united with their decision.

"Hands up for me?" called Carn Hamren.

The hands of all the other Carns were in the air; the hands of all the other Carns except Aleksandr Masgard.

Hamren had to pause to do a recount. He had been confident of the other four votes. Who on Earth would vote for the youngster Eriksen? Surely nobody would want him as Carn? Then he realised that Masgard hadn't voted for him, and he understood his rival's motives.

Unlike Hamren, who voted for who he thought was the best candidate beside himself, Masgard voted in order to take away votes from his main contender. If he made sure that the votes were split between Eriksen and Hamren, then he would definitely become Great Carn. And he was confident that at least two of the other Carns would vote for Hamren. And so he voted for Eriksen, not because he thought that Carn Eriksen would be a better leader, but to guarantee power for himself.

Carn Hamren still couldn't believe his luck, having been beaten by Masgard's determination to win. The hands of the other three Carns still stood in the air, waiting for Hamren to continue the election. But Hamren wasn't going to admit defeat quite so easily.

"And you, Masgard?" questioned Hamren. "Who are you voting for?"

"Oh, me?" replied Masgard, pretending as though he had thought the question had been directed at someone else. "I was going to vote for Carn Eriksen, Hamren."

Now Hamren had no choice but to except defeat. Slightly red-faced due to his embarrassment, Hamren announced the result of the election.

"The new Great Carn of the Arkhangelsk is Aleksandr Masgard, with four votes," he announced.

Masgard smiled, pleased with his brother's idea. It was Viktor who had suggested voting for Eriksen, to make sure that one vote was definitely taken away from Carn Hamren, a vote that turned out to be crucial.

"Well then," began Aleksandr Masgard, addressing his new subjects for the first time. "The first thing that I propose may raise debate, but I believe it to be the necessary step forward following the lessons we learnt at Dry Ships Hill yesterday." Masgard paused to allow his words to sink in, hoping that some of his fellow Carns would pre-empt his next statement. He had always planned to raise the controversial issue in this meeting, anyway. Only now he has the power to carry out his decisions, regardless of the opinions of the other Carns. But he still wanted to let them know of his plans, so that he could test which way the wind was blowing. Whether much opposition would spring from his plans.

"What I plan," said Masgard cautiously. "Is to convert our empire into a traction city."

Cluny, who had been listening intently to Masgard's words, was appalled.

"No!" she shouted, shocked. "I won't allow it! You can't do this!"

"You won't allow it?" Masgard laughed. "_You_ won't allow it? Do you really expect us to listen to you, the so-called vessel of the Ancestors after where your crusade led us?"

The Carns, who had been unsure of Masgard's plans, now united together against Cluny's outburst, and many cheered on Masgard as he snapped at her.

"But you can't do it!" Cluny cried desperately. "It's all wrong! It's against our traditional values!"

"But where have traditions and gods sent us, Miss Morvish? The ancestors may have sent you visions, but in my eyes, the only message that your little crusade has given us is that a traction city is far stronger than the nomad empires!"

"Maybe there are better ways of living than our current society," said Cluny defensively. "But if we convert to traction, we are abandoning all that makes us of the Arkhangelsk!"

Cluny had looked up at Viktor Masgard, trying to appeal to him to bring sense to his older brother. But Viktor only smiled sadly back at her before replying.

"That may be true, but a new era is dawning. Many other cities will be converting to traction. London's strength is there for all to see. Our nomad society will break down, yes. But it will be a step forward. A new age. A new city. A new people. But the Arkhangelsk shall move forward. I know that we as a people are not famed for our forward thinking, Miss Morvish. But there comes a time when we must embrace the future."

"Have you ever heard of the phrase 'if you can't beat them, join them', Miss Morvish?" asked Aleksandr Masgard, which flummoxed Cluny and left her speechless. She had no counterargument to that, and the other Carns cheered on Masgard. At last, she spoke out again.

"What's to say that even after building a new city, London will be even stronger too? What if London will still be able to catch us?"

"Science and reason, Miss Morvish," said Carn Hamren firmly. Cluny could tell that he was won over by the notion of a traction city, too. Even though Fever had told her this during the night, she'd never really believed it. She had always thought that the Carns would side with tradition as she did until they stood there united against her, willing to throw hundreds of years of history aside.

"The population of old, static London was sixty thousand," continued Carn Hamren. "Adding the Movement's men, new London will need to be capable of holding over seventy thousand people."

"What's your point, Carn Hamren?" asked Cluny, again confused by his words.

"My point is," Hamren continued. "That if you compare London's population to the twenty thousand of the Arkhangelsk, you will see that our city can afford to be much lighter and smaller than theirs, meaning that we will be able to travel faster than them. Can you explain how London will destroy us, Miss Morvish, if they can't even catch us?"

Cluny was silenced yet again, beaten by the voice of reason. If only she'd listened to Fever, she'd never have embarrassed herself in such a public way. But she wanted no part in Masgard's barbaric plans.

"I don't want any part in your plans," said Cluny quietly and angrily, addressing the whole table. "Come, Marten. We're leaving."

And with that, Cluny turned and stalked out of the hall, leaving Fever and Marten with little choice but to follow. guards made no attempt to stop her as she stormed out of the large oak doors at the entrance to the hall, with Masgard's last words echoing down the corridor after her as she attempted to leave the _Black Dog_ behind her.

"You don't know what you're missing out on, Miss Morvish! A new era! A new city! A new _Arkangel_!"


	5. Parisian Walkways

**Chapter 5**

**Parisian Walkways**

* * *

**Two Months Later**

Deep in the heart of Paris' Old Quarter, the wide boulevards were a hub of activity, even at eleven in the morning on a cold Tuesday in November as the first snows of winter began to fall on the largest of the Frankish city-states. The Old Quarter wasn't really a quarter of Paris; it was much closer to a twentieth of the city's size, but the name has carried from the times when the sector attributed to a much larger percentage of the city. A popular destination for tourists and historians alike, the major selling point of the Old Quarter is that it has supposedly remained unchanged since a time when the year was recorded in four digits, in an age prior to the Screen Age, which historians have named the Georgian Age after the fact that old manuscripts refer to the Old Quarter as having Georgian architecture. In reality, this was a false claim; so much building work was being done to keep the buildings in shape that it was unlikely if any of the stone in any of the Old Quarter's buildings had been there for more than a century.

Amongst the hub of Frankish men and women going about their business and wealthy European tourists, Dr Charley Shallow was absorbing the atmosphere of Parisian life.

He was in a café that faced out over the river Seine, sitting quietly in the corner at an old wooden table in a chair that didn't feel at all safe. But he had a warm mug of coffee and in contrast to the snowy world outside, Charley felt that the café was quite an appealing place to be.

He had arrived three weeks ago by land-barge, with only a rudimentary map of the city and five hundred Franks by way of possessions. Oh, and the pistol that the Guild of Engineers had issued him with. In his line of work, they had told him, a pistol could have many crucial uses.

The new Suppression Office was a mixed bag of veterans from the old organisation and fresh-blooded recruits, most of which were in their teens and only newly-qualified Engineers, like Charley. After a month's preparation, which was made sure to last a month so that the Engineers could let their hair grow out to avoid detection, the best twelve members were dispatched in pairs to the most powerful and influential of the European city states.  
And so Charley was sent to deal with the issue of Paris. He had found that unlike London, the Parisian government had managed to keep three quarters of the city untouched, which meant that Paris' residents were on the side of the leaders. Very little opposition had formed to the new city, which, at the time Charley arrived, had two completed tiers and work beginning on a third. But it was Charley's job to cause unrest and generally prove a nuisance for the builders of the new city.

He had been instructed to send a letter back to the Suppression Office, and more specifically Dr Crumb, every month of his stay in Paris, which was planned to last for nine months, from October until July. But in order to get the letter to return to him for the month's deadline, the letter would have go be sent early. So here, in the secrecy of a busy café in the heart of the Old Quarter, Charley was beginning to write.

Opposite him sat his colleague for his stay in Paris, a young Engineer who was of a similar age to Charley; a tall, gangly boy with dark brown hair named Ronnie Coldharbour. It had almost amused Charley when Coldharbour had been selected as one of the twelve operatives for the Suppression Office, and it definitely had been amusing for Charley to find himself paired with newly-promoted Dr Coldharbour.

The two were about as similar as chalk and cheese, as Charley was a traditional Engineer, and Coldharbour was one of the new breed.

Charley's past had been bleak; growing up parentless behind Ted Swiney's pub on Ditch Street in the rougher boroughs of the old London, to apprentice Skinner, to apprentice Engineer. He was, in many ways, a traditional Engineer, from a similar background to the Engineers of old, who had joined the Engineers before it gained Guild status after the Movement takeover. Back in the days of Scriven rule, Engineers had been the poor-but-brainy types, such as Griffin Whyre and Gideon Crumb.

Since the promotion to Guild status and the construction of the new London and the realisation of the importance of Engineers aboard a moving city, many wealthy families, who would have previously trained their sons to become merchants or tradesmen, were now apprenticing their sons to the Guild of Engineers instead.

Ronnie Coldharbour's family had been wealthy merchants for generation's with Coldharbour's father being an influential member of the Guild of Merchants, one of London's most powerful guilds. But, being the youngest son, his elder brothers were expected to take his father's place in the family business, and the family made the decision to apprentice Ronnie, who was fourteen at the time, to the Engineers, not the Merchants.

Being from entirely different social classes, the two hadn't gotten off to a winning start when Charley found himself thrown into Coldharbour's dorm in the Engineerium after leaving Bishopsgate when Fever Crumb returned home, thirteen months prior to their mission to Paris.

The snobbery shown by Coldharbour hadn't been warmly recieved by low-born Charley, who had played up the stereotype by smashing Coldharbour's nose in with a jug within five minutes of then sharing each other's presence. At first, the other Engineers had grown to fear Charley, but after his involvement in the capture of the anti-tractionist terrorist group named the London Underground, that fear slowly turned to respect.

They may not have been friends, but by the time Doctors Shallow and Coldharbour departed for Paris together, they were, at very least, civil to each other. Even if there were still grudges between them, they were now fully qualified Engineers, and any opinions of the other were kept quietly to themselves, buried within the sanctity of their minds.

And so, after nearly a month in Paris, the two young Engineers had to write home.

Charley went to put pen to paper, but paused, unsure of how to begin.

"What should we say?" he asked his colleague. Until this point, Charley had never had to write a formal letter in his life.

Coldharbour paused for a moment before answering.

"I'd address it to Dr Crumb, first of all," he began. "I guess, because we've not really gotten down to business yet, we should just tell him about life in the city."

"I guess we could," replied Charley, taking a sip of his coffee. "As Dr Ellingsworth did tell us that London knew little of Paris' society of political structure. At least we have managed to learn about that in our first weeks here. It's a step in the right direction, after all."

Coldharbour nodded, and Charley began to write.

Since arriving in Paris, Charley had seen that power was held in a very similar way in Paris to London. The Lord Mayor, as in London, had supreme power, but the people were represented by the guilds, who, as in London, had enough power to influence the Mayor at times. Due to the large cultural influence in Paris, the leading four guilds were the Guild of Mechanics (the equivalent of the Engineers), the Guild of Historians, the Guild of Architects and the Guild of Merchants. As in London, these guilds (and the other twenty or so lesser guilds) formed a council for the Lord Mayor to consult for advice.

"Make sure to tell him about the new city, too," added Coldharbour when Charley had finished writing. Of course, Charley hadn't planned on leaving out his knowledge of the new city. That was the sole reason why the two Engineers had been sent to Paris, and it was important to give Dr Crumb the impression that they were on top of things, even if no actual action had been taken.

And so Charley began to write again, making sure to tell Dr Crumb of the two completed tiers on the chassis that sat atop the hill north of the river Seine, and of the thick metal supports and thin deckplate that was the beginning of a third tier. Charley reckoned that six months would be all that Paris would need to have three completed tiers; more than a match for London.

"How truthful should we keep this?" asked Charley, knowing that the men at home in London would be down-hearted at the truth of the progress made in Paris.

"Keep it truthful," was Coldharbour's reply. "They need to understand how serious the situation is, and that it needs to be taken seriously."

"Should we include the thoughts of the people?" asked Charley. "We had thought that getting the people on our side was our best chance of generating change."

"Yes, we need to tell him," was Coldharbour's answer. Very efficient and to the point, as Charley had grown to expect after a month with Coldharbour. Despite being an arrogant, snobbish boy a year ago, his time with the Engineers has definitely mellowed him. At the very least, Coldharbour has learnt to give Charley respect. How much of that was due to Charley's displays of force, Charley did not know.

As Charley wrote on again, he made sure to tell Dr Crumb about the mood of the Parisians, who were fiercely loyal to the new city. There was no way Charley could put construction work on the new city on standby through popular support of the Parisians. If any of them were actually against the idea, they either said nothing or had been dealt with so quickly and efficiently by the authorities that nobody knew anything had ever occurred between the Parisian Police Force and any anti-tractionist rebels.

Charley went on to explain that the main reason for this was that the Lord Mayor had decided to let Parisians keep their homes rather than being moved into temporary housing (as happened during the construction of new London), and the fact that Paris' third tier was set to house the buildings of the Old Quarter onto the new city brick for brick, so that some of the old Paris will stay with the new city on its travels. At the centre of the third tier, the Guilds of Mechanics and Architects planned to work together to reconstruct the Eiffel Tower, which currently stood a thousand feet tall on the banks of the river Seine less than four hundred yards from the café that Charley was in, in the centre of the highest tier as a monument of Paris' cultural prestige and its Engineering prowess.

"Typical, isn't it?" said Charley across the table to Coldharbour. "The Mayor of Paris listens to his people, doesn't he? They wanted a bit of old Paris with them on their travels, and he gives them the whole Old Quarter and the Eiffel Tower."

"Your point being?" asked Coldharbour, slightly confused.

"Back in the days when I was working as an unofficial double-agent in the London Underground," began Charley. He knew that Coldharbour had been impressed to hear of Charley's days with the Underground and Charley's spectacular betrayal at such a crucial time in London's history. Charley never told Coldharbour that had the Underground have succeeded, he'd have enjoyed success as a rebel rather than protect his fellow Engineers. He'd merely told Coldharbour the parts of the story that he'd wanted to hear. And it had been worth it; all of his fellow apprentices had revered him after the events of the Underground's downfall.

"Well, when I was with the Underground," continued Charley. "I used to know a man called Vimto Grebe. An old archaeologist, he was. He claimed to have found the remains of St. Paul's Cathedral - you know, that big church thing the ancients had in the middle of London, built by that famous architect chap, Sir Chris Sparrow or something - and he wrote to Quercus, asking if it could be rebuilt atop new London, you know, for continuity's sake."  
"And what did Quercus do?" asked Coldharbour, leaning forward in his chair, intrigued.

"Quercus turned him down flat," Charley said with a touch of incredulity. "Again and again Master Grebe asked, but Quercus was having none of it."

"What's your point, Shallow?" asked Coldharbour, irritating Charley slightly. Here in Paris, he wasn't able to use his full title for fear of detection. Someone might put two and two together with the accent and the title of Doctor and tip off the aurhorities that London Engineers were in Paris.

"There's my point," he said, pointing out of the window at the Eiffel Tower, which was clearly visible from the table that they had chosen in the corner of the café. "You look at that tower out there. It's nothing but iron lattices, a few hundred steel steps and five or six lifts operated on pulleys using weights and counterweights. Back home, the Guild of Engineers could build that in their sleep. And yet the Parisians love it, and the Mayor's the most popular man in town because he plans to stick that thing atop their city."

"And?" countered Coldharbour. "It's a cultural icon, a massive tourist attraction - I mean, who hasn't heard of the Eiffel Tower? - and there is the slight thing that it's the tallest structure in the world..."  
"We could build one bigger," said Charley bitterly. "The point that I'm making is that if Quercus wants to guarantee the support of the people of London, all he needs to do is give up a small amount of space on top tier and build the city a cathedral. Even if it doesn't look like St. Paul's. There are no surviving pictures of St. Paul's; no photographs, nothing. So he can make up the design as he goes along, stick the name on the front and everyone will love him."

"There is one thing you've not considered, Shallow."

Charley looked surprised.

"And what's that then, Coldharbour?"

"Paris is a cultured city," explained Ronnie Coldharbour. "The people here care for their heritage, and want to carry on the legacy of Paris' golden days. Back at home in London, half the people of the lower boroughs - no offence to your upbringing, Charley - didn't even care when the city that they knew was torn down by Quercus' demolition gangs. So why would they care for a legendary cathedral that they would never have seen before?"

Coldharbour's application of reason had somewhat disheartened Charley, but he was far from giving up.

"That may be so," he replied. "But I still feel that the issue should be raised with Quercus and the other Engineers again, after the effect that the Eiffel Tower has had on the Parisians here."

Charley finished the remainder of his mug of coffee and then stood to leave, pulling on his leather coat, which still felt odd to wear after three years in a canvas lab coat.

"Come on, Coldharbour," he said impatiently as his colleague took his time to pay for their drinks. "We have a letter to send."

The walk to the trade office was not far, although once they arrived, they were shocked by the extortionate rates that were charged to London. Charley could only guess that the convoys of land barges that Dr Crumb had instructed them to use (the barges would carry letters, food or other goods from city to city for a price, of course) had either decreased in number or the frequency of their trips to London had decreased since London's transformation to a traction city, as it now costed Charley ten Franks to get his letter a place on a land barge bound for London.

The trade office was unbelievably busy, as the young Engineers had visited it during lunchtime, and many Parisians had made the quick trip to the trade office during their lunch break to either collect or drop off goods from the land barges.

And so, when Charley and Coldharbour finally left the trade office an hour and a half after arriving, they were hot, tired, and generally not in the mood to do any more work that afternoon, and so the pair decided to retire to London's embassy on the edge of Paris, where London's ambassador had granted them lodgings.

The embassy was a small place; little more than a large house, with a half dozen rooms available for London businessmen and the like, and a foyer-type entrance hall where the ambassador, a respectable middle-aged man named William Hall, waited to meet guests, run odd errands for them and keep in contact with London as to its news and if anyone from home needed his guests. All in all, he was just a happy, helpful host.

When, at nearing three in the afternoon, Charley and Coldharbour turned up on William Hall's doorstep again, the ambassador was genuinely pleased to see them.

"Ah, Dr Shallow!" he said joyfully. "Dr Coldharbour! A pleasure to see you again!"

When the Guild of Engineers had informed William Hall that two of their members would be staying in Paris on an important mission, he knew that it was not his place to ask for more details. He didn't know what their job in Paris was, nor how long they would be staying for. But when two Engineers looking little older than sixteen turned up on William Hall's doorstep in the pouring rain of an October afternoon and announced that they would be staying "for the forseeable future", he made an effort to be a more than hospitable host. He was intrigued by the young Engineers; why they had been sent to Paris, and what they must be doing that is so important. But he knew better than to ask questions of his guests, and he knew that if the mission was important enough for it to be kept from the ambassador, then the young Doctors would probably not wish to be known in Paris as Engineers. So Hall made sure not to refer to them as Engineers if anyone ever asked who was lodging in the embassy. The Guild of Engineers were not popular in Paris, as London was a rival traction city to Paris, so Hall assumed that if the young Engineers were identified, their work in Paris would be ruined, so Hall had been careful not to spread the word.

"Back early today, boys!" he called cheerfully to the Engineers as they took off their thick fur-lined coats in the entrance foyer. "No more work to do?"

"Not particularly, Mr Hall," called back the taller Engineer named Dr Coldharbour. "And anyway, we're tired, and we need an afternoon off. If you don't mind, of course, Mr Hall."

"No, not all, Dr Coldharbour!" replied Mr Hall, eager to help. "Not at all! If there's anything you need, I'm willing to be of help!"

"We've already spared you a job today, Mr Hall," said the shorter Engineer formally. "We've sent a letter home through the trade office in town. We didn't want to trouble you with the journey. We were in town anyway, and it seemed like the most rational thing to do."

"But the fees! The courier's rates are most extortionate! However could you afford it?"

"Oh, we were given five hundred Franks by the Guild before we left," said Dr Shallow calmly.

_Five hundred Franks!_ thought William Hall. _Five Hundred!_ _My salary is only three hundred, and I'm a well-off man! Whatever these Engineers are doing, it must be important to have funding like that._

"Oh!" said Hall, remembering an encounter from earlier in the day. "I have a letter for you, boys."

Dr Shallow raised an eyebrow; the most emotion that Hall had ever seen from an Engineer.

"From London?" he asked hopefully.

"No," replied Hall. "A merchant, by the look of him. A foreign bloke, I don't know where from. Not London or Paris, I tell you. I couldn't recognise the accent, though. Early twenties. Came in asking about you, and when I said you were out, he got out a sheet of paper and wrote down a note. He said to give it to you upon your return. I haven't read the note, of course, for it is a matter of privacy, but from watching the young man write, I don't believe he signed it."

"Well then, show us the letter," said Dr Coldharbour impatiently.

William Hall headed to his filing cabinet and pulled out a small sheet of paper carefully folded into four, with the words _note for Dr Shallow, Dr Coldharbour_ written roughly on the front.

"There you go, boys," said Hall eagerly as he handed over the letter to Dr Shallow, pleased to have helped out the Engineers.

Charley quickly unfolded the letter, not really reading it as he skipped to the bottom to search for a signature. And it turned out the ambassador was right. This letter for them was unsigned.


	6. Walking Alone

**A/N: I'm not sure if this chapter quite worked out the way that I wanted it to, so I'd quite like to know what you, the readers, make of it. I'm just unsure about my, er, _musings_ on Fever and Cluny's relationship dynamics.**

**Regardless, I hope you enjoy the chapter :)**

* * *

**Chapter Six**

**Travelling Alone**

* * *

Cluny was sure that she had completely shocked the Carns with what they must have believed to have been rash decisions from her, but she didn't regret any of it. She knew what she wanted, and that was to live a simple nomadic life, following in the footsteps of her forefathers. Especially after the events of the last year, Cluny wanted more than ever just to be normal.

Standing at the prow of the Morvish's largest land barge, she once again felt that excitement that nomad life had offered her in her early years. Old times really were the best. Times before politics or world affairs were important to you, where everything was fun and danger was unheard of. The Morvish, who had abandoned the radical Carns of the new Council to form a separatist group, now roamed the marshy land north of Kjork and Lincoln freely.

Cluny had expected barely anyone to follow her and Marten, who now jointly led the Morvish, away from the Arkhangelsk, and she had been pleasantly surprised to find two other land barges, six or seven landships and a few dozen campavans following her away from her empire. In comparison to the size of the empire that she had left behind, she knew that her Kometsvansen was small; a thousand people at most. But it was more that she had expected, and she was grateful for it.

The Morvish had been steadily travelling north a few miles every few days, so that by the snowy morning that Charley Shallow received the letter at the London embassy in Paris, Cluny's land barge was moving slowly over moorland that was once known to be part of a region called Kjorkshire. The day was overcast and the clouds were filled with snow, although this didn't dampen Cluny's mood. The last two months had been some of the best of her life. For the first time, she was truly free, and able to take full control of her own future. Her sight had returned to her in the two months since the tesla gun struck her down, although it had never completely healed. She might struggle slightly at times, but given her previous condition, this was more than Cluny could ever have hoped for. And now that there was nobody to tell her otherwise, Cluny could spend all her time doing what she wanted to do. Most of the time, what she wanted to do was spend her time with Fever.

It had been an odd friendship, at first. Fever had been on some sort of expedition into the north with her mother, Wavey Godshawk, head of the Guild of Engineers at the time, when their land barge was intercepted by Marshal Rufus Raven, a Movement commander who was opposed to Quercus' plans. Cluny had been there at the time; her strange dreams of London as a completed traction city had caused unrest within the Arkhangelsk, and when the old technomancer Nintendo Tharp declared her to be the vessel of the ancestors, she found herself paraded around the north, trying to unite the nomads against new London.

And so, on the day that Fever and her mother Wavey had arrived at Raven's traction castle, which was named Jotungard, Cluny had been to talk to Raven, who had already been won over by the idea of uniting against Quercus' London several months before.

Wavey and her daughter Fever, who were indeed staunch supporters of Quercus were arrested by Raven, and when they tried to make a mistake, Wavey had been cut down by a Stalker and Fever had been injured by a crossbow bolt during the escape, and the Movement soldiers presumed her to be dead. But the Arkhangelsk knew not to believe someone dead until they had seen the body. There had been too many witnesses to Wavey's brutal end to doubt that she had died, but little had been said of seventeen-year-old Fever.

It had been Marten who had found her as the Arkhangelsk men who had travelled with Cluny left Jotungard, and she was almost dead by the time that they returned her to Nintendo Tharp, who intended to heal her. Fever made a miraculous recovery, but no matter how much he showed off about his medical skills, Cluny was convinced that the old technomancer had not healed Fever. Something about the girl was different.

Fever, a slight girl of seventeen, stood next to Cluny at the prow of her land barge. She can still remember those first few days of recovery with the Arkhangelsk. She'd first seen Cluny through the eyes of Auric Godshawk, the former King of London who had implanted a Stalker brain filled with his memories into Fever's mind when she was a baby. Fever had known nothing of this machine until shortly after her fourteenth birthday, just before the Movement takeover of London. Shut off when Charley Shallow, an Apprentice Skinner at the time, had shot at her with a magneto gun, which was a device used to shut down Stalkers. But she remembered the memories that Auric Godshawk had given her, and it surprised her to see Cluny begin to break down with vivid daydreams the way that Fever had done before. Whereas the technomancers of the Arkhangelsk had told Cluny that the dream was due to the ancestors, Fever saw that in reality it was because Cluny, a young baby in London with her mercenary father at the time of Godshawk's experiments, had been given an identical machine to Fever's. She knew what needed to be done with Cluny to put her right. Well, Fever knew the risky, violent way; the method that had unintentionally been used on her. Her mission to the north with her mother had been to find out more about the Stalkers and her mother's dying race; the Scriven. And so, with permission of Carn Morvish, a mission to Skrevanastuut was launched, with Fever, Cluny and Marten making the journey.

After a few weeks in the valleys of Caledon, Arkhangelsk came calling and the land armada was ready to fight new London. The ensuing battle had, of course, resulted to the nomads' downfall, and eventually to the Morvish's abandonment of their empire.

"I wish we knew exactly where we were going," said Cluny despairingly. The weeks since leaving the Arkhangelsk had been stressful for Cluny; her and Marten didn't really know where they were going; only that they were headed north, towards Dinburgh, Aberdeen and the fuel country.

"We should continue to slowly move north," replied Fever with a sense of certainty in her voice.  
Cluny sighed.

"If only it was that easy, Fever-my-sister," she replied.

"It is, Cluny," explained Fever. "We just need time and space. We need to stay far away from the Arkhangelsk. After the way we abandoned them, I doubt Masgard and his men would be pleased to have us back."

Cluny laughed at this.

"I couldn't care less what Masgard thinks," she said honestly. "They are so detached from the ways of the Arkhangelsk that I don't think of them as true nomads."

"I don't agree," replied Fever. "Being forward-thinking doesn't stop you from being a nomad. Take the Movement, for example; for hundreds of years, they have travelled the land, using science and engineering to let them better their adversaries."

"And look where they ended up!" countered Cluny. "Building that infernal device that they like to call new London!"  
"It may not be traditional, but there is no denying the technological progress that the Movement have made, turning what was a small nomad empire into rulers of the north; with their traction city, their dominance will surely now become unchallenged."

"Do you know what?" Cluny snapped irritably. "We should just get as far away from London as possible. Head into the north; Caledon, the ice wastes beyond. Send word for Marten; we should press on north."

It was three more days before the Morvish stopped moving again, now just thirty or so miles short or Dinburgh, a walled town that they will definitely avoid coming into contact with during their journey. As the land barges and campavans finally came to a halt again, men poured out to spend time on the land, to hunt and gather food, harvest resources and just to have fun outdoors.

Cluny wanted to be down on the ground as much as anyone; they were now north of the bleak moors, and they had stopped near the top of a steep valley, which seemed to be full of tall pine trees. She wanted to explore along the edge of the slopes, and although Marten didn't want Cluny to risk danger becoming of her, Fever agreed to go with her, which put Marten's mind at ease.

The two had walked alone towards the valley's edge, enjoying the brief moments of freedom that they seldom received since Cluny's ascension to power and Fever's promotion to become the Morvish's technomancer.  
The minutes away from the stress of the last two months calmed both girls immensely, and as the clear skies of the evening lay orange as sunset fell upon them, the girls reached a rocky outcrop at the edge of the valley, looking down over the verdant slopes. Both of them were left breathless; a sight of such natural beauty still astonished them, even after travelling all over the north and Europa. Behind them, trees and a low rise meant that any signs of the existence of the Morvish were almost invisible. In the tranquility of the moment, Fever and Cluny sat side by side upon a flat rock overlooking the valley, staring in wonder at the view.

"I'm sorry about snapping at you a couple of days ago," apologised Cluny shyly.

Fever was touched by Cluny's honest apology, even though she hadn't held anything against Cluny for her outburst, anyway. In a world where Fever only had one true friend, there was no time for grudges.

"It doesn't matter, Cluny," she replied, smiling.

Cluny returned the smile, feeling better for herself. She didn't really know how to respond to that, but reached out to touch Fever affectionately on the shoulder; a sign of caring. Both girls fell into silence again, admiring the view.

"It's a pity we can't just stay here," said Cluny disappointedly after a while.

"Why can't we?" asked Fever questioningly. "The land here is good. It would be easy to form a static community."

"Half of our people would desert us," replied Cluny with a touch of pessimism. "Most of them only joined us because we wanted to continue the old ways, rather than converting to a traction city. And after all, it will be impossible to survive as a static settlement if other traction cities are roaming around."

Fever nodded, sadly realising that Cluny was right. After all, beautiful things don't last forever.

"So where shall we go to, Cluny?" Fever asked.

"I suppose I should consult Marten before making a decision," said Cluny. "But really Marten is too young to be making decisions. As much as he wants to lead, he is too young; this will be his thirteenth winter. He hasn't enough experience of the ways of the Morvish to lead us. Not yet, anyway."

"So...?"

"So we should head north, into more familiar land; the snows of Heklasrand. If we travel quickly, we could arrive by the end of the Second Frost Moon. Two weeks will be all that we need."

"If we're heading north, could we not travel to Caledon?" said Fever hopefully. Ever since her journey to Skrevanastuut, she had been troubled by the pyramid, what it had told her, and what she still wanted to find out about herself, for the ancient site had knowledge of her mother's race; the Scriven.

"You're not still thinking about about Skrevanastuut, are you, Fever-my-sister?"

"I guess," said Fever, cautiously admitting to her reasoning behind her request.

"Don't you remember what happened last time we went? Don't you remember what happened to Marten?" complained Cluny.

"Yes, Cluny, I do. But the Nightwights can be reasoned with. I'm sure of it," Fever reassured her. "And if not, it won't be just the three of us this time. The men of the Morvish will protect us."

Cluny pondered on this for a moment before replying.

"I don't know, Fever-my-sister," she sighed. "Marten will not be pleased. As much as I may advise him, we go nowhere without his permission. And isn't the pyramid destroyed, anyway?"

"Yet again, that is something that I don't know," replied Fever. "We left Skrevanastuut before Tharp's men had finished trashing the place. But looking at the equipment they had with them and how well the pyramid has fared with millennia against the elements, I reckon that quite a lot of Skrevanastuut will still be intact."

"But what else is there to learn from it?" said Cluny, perplexed.

"Plenty," said Fever excitedly. "The computer-brains and Stalkers at Skrevanastuut knew of the times before the Downsizing. The knowledge that they have... What happened to cause the Downsizing, how Stalkers were first created, what technology the ancients had, and of course, who first created the Scriven..."

"But what use is all this history?" said Cluny. I can't see how this will help anyone."

"Everyone will benefit from anything we find at Skrevanastuut!" Fever said excitedly. "If humanity knew how it had almost destroyed itself before, it would be able to prevent itself from repeating the events again! As for the technology, imagine how much better off the world would be! And as for finding out about the Scriven..." Fever's voice trailed off.

"What?" asked Cluny impatiently, wondering why Fever had stopped talking.

"It amazes me that there is so much out there just around the corner, waiting to be found out," said Fever. "I never knew that the Scriven had a true beginning when I grew up, and knowing little of them other than that they were a dead race, I never really cared for them, either. Once I knew of my connections to them, and my half-Scriven blood, I began to take an interest in who they were and why they were that way. My maternal grandfather was Auric Godshawk, Lord of the Scriven, King of London. And through his inventions, we are connected, Cluny. Connected by Godshawk's memories, installed in our brains by his devices. And so I'm not just going to Skrevanastuut for myself; I'm going there for you, too."

Cluny was shocked by Fever's words. She had never been interested in the past. She had never understood how the past could explain anything in her world. But the way that Fever had told it, it was as though history comes in cycles, and humanity will learn from history just as a child as school learns from his past mistakes. And as for Godshawk's machines, now that Cluny understood what had been going on inside her head, she couldn't deny that she was curious to know more. She was warming to the idea of travelling to Skrevanastuut more and more. It would be a week away, at most. Surely that wouldn't be much of a detour?

"Fine," said Cluny firmly. "We'll try to go. It all depends on Marten, of course."

Fever smiled, pleased that there was at least a chance of her returning to Skrevanastuut. She could have had little else better from asking Cluny; she had done everything in her power to support Fever. Now, as ever, it all rested on Marten's decision.

Fever found that, in the silence that followed the end of her discussion, her attention was drawn back to the valley, which was lit in a deep orange as the sun crept towards the horizon. But as time drew on, Fever grew more and more interested in Cluny.

She could still remember the first time she had spoken to her; recovering from her injuries she obtained at Hill 60 courtesy of Raven, in the custody of the Arkhangelsk. It was through Godshawk's eyes that Fever had first seen Cluny, and for some unknown reason those lingering Godshawkish instincts still made Fever feel attracted to her.  
Fever wasn't even sure what she meant when she said that she was attracted to her. She definitely cared for Cluny; she risked her life to help Cluny escape London, and very nearly paid the price. Past friendship, well, Fever didn't know herself. Did she feel some sort of attraction to Cluny? Godshawk certainly seemed to think so. There was no denying that Fever saw Cluny as beautiful. Even before the two had ever spoke, and Fever had first laid eyes on Cluny at Hill 60, she had already told herself that Cluny was attractive, with her tall figure and rust-coloured hair. There was something about her personality, too; her trustingness, her concern for Fever, her bravery or her confidence. There was just something about her personality that Fever loved. Maybe it was that lilting northern voice that Cluny had, or just the way that she dressed. But Fever didn't know exactly why she was attracted to Cluny, but she didn't care why, either. All that mattered to her was Cluny.

Fever knew that she felt for Cluny, but she still didn't know in what way. She tried to remember back to her time in Mayda, with a boy named Arlo Thursday, an engineer who had been keen on discovering the secrets of heavier-than-air flight. Yes, she'd taken a liking to him, and spent a year moping about him after her mother forced Fever to return home to London. But had she ever loved him? Fever still didn't know. Emotions are unusual for Engineers; Fever would not know how to control them.

But now, an older, more responsible, more emotionally stable Fever still couldn't explain her feelings for Cluny. Was it love? She was certainly willing to risk enough for Cluny to show how much she cared. But love is more than just companionship and camaraderie. Thinking back over the past three months since her first arrival with the Arkhangelsk, Fever realised that most of the time, she had always wanted to make an impression on Cluny. Her happiest times were when Cluny was with her, and when she was gone, Fever craved her attention.

And then Fever understood.

She loved Cluny Morvish.

She silenced her thought train again; even now, she wasn't comfortable with the idea of such strong emotion. But her eyes remained on Cluny.

Fever wondered if somehow Cluny felt for her too. Maybe not in the same way as Fever felt for her, but Fever would just have been happy knowing that Cluny had some sort of sentimental attraction to her, however unlikely that may be.

And suddenly all that mattered to Fever was finding out. She would do it covertly, she decided, so that Cluny might give away an answer without openly asking, which was something that Fever thought she would never do. Even a simple 'no' would be better than not knowing. All these months of musing over Cluny had left her hungry for an answer.

"Cluny," Fever said tentatively, not really sure what she was intending to say afterwards.

"What is it, Fever-my-sister?" Cluny replied, but her words were only met with silence as Fever figured out how to put her next question into suitable terms.

"What would you do if I told you I loved you?" Fever asked eventually. She cringed at the sound of her question, already wondering how Cluny would respond to it.

Cluny, however, was simply stunned by Fever's words, and was caught off-guard. She didn't know how to reply, as she wasn't even sure what Fever had meant. Was this some sort of loaded question? Or was this just the sort of thing that Fever and other London girls had talked about on long winter's nights to pass the time? She had no idea what to say.

In the end, she just laughed awkwardly, trying to make light of the situation.

"I... I don't know, Fever-my-sister," she said cautiously. "Whatever made you ask, anyway?"

Of all the responses that Cluny could have given, Fever had never expected this one. This wasn't going the way that she had planned it.

"Oh, it doesn't matter, Cluny," said Fever disappointedly, trying to change the subject.

"So... You don't love me or anything, then?"

"What? Oh, er, no, no I don't. Don't be ridiculous," said Fever, stuttering a little.

"Right."

"Right."

So Fever had attempted to reveal all to Cluny, and it had resulted in her being further than ever from revealing her secret. The awkward silence remained between them until an old fighter of the Morvish, a man named Munt, came to tell them that Marten required their services aboard their largest land barge, the Shooting Star. But although Fever had not been able to manipulate to her own needs, the conversation had still proved invaluable.

For the first time since leaving the Arkhangelsk Empire, the Morvish had their future properly planned out for them.

* * *

**A/N: Please let me know what you think of this chapter. I'm unsure whether or not to have a second go at writing it. The main plot points, of course, will remain the same, even if I rewrite this.**

**Anyway, thanks for continuing to read this story, I appreciate it :)**


	7. Interrogation

**Chapter 7**

**Interrogation**

* * *

"Sir!" called an eager voice from outside the study. "Intruders, sir!"

Piotr Hamren, who had been sitting down at the desk in his study poring over his maps of Bremen, sighed as he stood up to open the thick oak door to his private study aboard the _Custard Pie_. Outside stood a tall man in a thick leather coat; one of his colleagues on this mission to Bremen, which was one of the pan-European city states that was in the process of constructing a traction city. In Bremen, construction was still at an early stage, but that was good news to Hamren. This meant that Bremen had less of a head start over the Arkhangelsk, and that Hamren could witness more of Bremen's construction first hand, giving him more information to relay to Great Carn Masgard upon his homecoming to Arkhangelsk.

Of course, due to the technological incompetence of the Arkhangelsk, it was also preferable for Hamren to try and understand the secrets of the construction of traction cities, and to try and force German workers to change sides and help the Arkhangelsk prepare its new city. And, if all else fails, slowing down the progress of rival traction cities would still be considered a success.

"I found these two lurking around the back of our barges, sir!" says Ravn, one of Hamren's men, who marches into the study pushing a man in his late twenties into the moderately sized room with him, their hands held firmly behind their backs by their captors. Another man, Skaet, follows Ravn into the room with a younger man, who Hamren thought might be even younger than him; eighteen or nineteen, maybe twenty. No older.

"When we asked them to explain themselves, they tried to run. There's something odd about them, I'm sure," continued Ravn.

"Who are you, and what business do you have here?" Hamren asked demandingly. He knew that it wouldn't be sensible to run when if they had nothing to hide. Neither of the men looked like anything much; they appeared to be distinctly normal. Too normal, almost. As if they wished to blend in.

"What does it matter to you, anyway?" replied the older man, an arrogant grin plastered across his face.

"Well, you'd have to be up to something to be snooping around our barge," snapped Hamren.

"If we're snooping, then you must have something that you're trying to hide," countered the other man. He was braver than Hamren had expected; willing to fight back against Hamren's accusations and use a quick brain to get himself out of trouble.

"What does it matter who we are, or what are business is?" replied Hamren curtly. "We're the ones making demands. Not you."

"Now, you see, we were only here to find out your business. We've seen a few shifty figures hanging around, and wanted to learn more as to your operations here," said the younger man, who was still full of confidence. "You're not from around here, are you?"

Hamren chose not to answer the young man's question. Instead, he responded with a question of his own.

"Neither are you," he said matter-of-factly. He recognised their accents, and even though he might not have been certain, he had a hunch where they were from. "You're Londoners, aren't you?"

The elder man grinned.

"Aye. We're from London, and we're Londoners through and through."

Hamren rounded on the two men, who pushed back towards the bay window at the back of the study, whilst Hamren's men blocked the door, preventing the Londoners' escape. Hamren also unbuttoned his shirt, making sure that the pistol in his belt was visible to the Londoners.

"There's no rational reason for Londoners to be in Bremen," he said sternly. "Unless they are merchants here on business. And I can guarantee that merchants don't sneak around in the way that you have done."

"We merely got curious, that's all," was the quick reply from the older man.

"Merchants are too self-centred to get that curious. There's no way that you're going to convince me with that excuse." Hamren pulled the pistol from his belt and pointed it at the elder man.

"I want answers, or I'm going to start shooting," demanded Hamren.

Despite the threat, the man grinned arrogantly.

"You wouldn't dare-"

BANG.

The younger man, who really had been no older than twenty, fell forward slowly, a shocked expression on his face and a bullet hole in his forehead, the blood decorating the window panes that had been behind his head. His elder colleague had lost his confidence, and a pained look spread across his face.

"_Ah_," was all he could say as he examined the body of his accomplice, not moving due to the gun that was once again aimed at him. "Ah."

"Who are you?" asked Hamren bluntly, not even remotely concerned by the body at his feet.

The man, who now wore a look of panic on his face, looked as though he was trying to get some more mileage out of his various lies and excuses, but eventually sighed and gave in to Hamren.

"My name is Avery Teal," he said quietly, staring at the floor, defeated. "I work for London."

"What do you work with?" demanded Hamren, not moving his weapon an inch.

"I worked with the Engineers."

Hamren raised an eyebrow at this. Maybe this man could be of use to Arkhangelsk. Maybe not actually with the construction of their city (he seemed too loyal to London to be of much use), but he could help Hamren with his work in Bremen.

"Did you work with the engines?" asked Hamren hopefully. He knew that Arkhangelsk were in short supply of men who understood the engines of their traction castles (in the north, Hamren's clan had only one technomancer), and was desperate to return a useful Engineer with him to Great Carn Masgard upon his return.

"No," was Dr Teal's swift reply.

"Any aspect of construction?" asked Hamren, slightly dejected.

"No."

"Then what did you do for the Engineers?" asked Hamren again, frustrated.

"I was - and still am - a member of a black ops unit known as the Suppression Office. I doubt you've heard of us. Most of London don't even know of our existence. We work to destroy any technology that opposes the new London. Usually we, er, _arrange unfortunate accidents_ to befall anyone meddling with matters that they shouldn't concern themselves with."

"Like the rediscovery of flight?" asked Hamren, thinking back to the suspicious circumstances in which he had heard rumours of coincidental deaths of all of Europa's pioneering aviators and engineers within a few months of each other.

"_Exactly_ like the rediscovery of flight," replied Dr Teal, permitting himself to give a small, smug smile.

"I suppose that the notorious Lothar Vishniak was a member of your ranks?" said Hamren, remembering the name of the fabled killer who was said to be stalking Europa two summers ago.

Dr Teal was now grinning.

"You catch on quick, don't you?" he laughed. "Yes, Vishniak is one of us."

"I know your type," was Hamren's stern response. "I bet Vishniak never existed. He was just a name given to some secret operative."

"I'll leave that one to your imagination," was Dr Teal's reply.

"Don't push your luck, Londoner," was Hamren's reply, making sure that Dr Teal could see his knuckles whiten as he started to apply pressure to the trigger of the pistol. "I said I wanted answers. So what is the role of this Suppression Office in Bremen?"

"As you might have noticed," said Dr Teal sarcastically. "There's a traction city being built here. The last thing that London needs is another city rivalling it for size or speed. My late colleague Dr Stapleton and I are here to do anything we can to prevent the people of Bremen from completing their new city."

"Are your men just here in Bremen?" asked Hamren nervously. He was beginning to suspect that the Suppression Office was a similar organisation to his own, as he was in one of eight crack teams of Arkhangelsk military officers sent on covert missions to the city states of Europa that were planning to build traction cities, with the insight to either gain information or sabotage construction works. If Dr Teal was here, then maybe officers in other cities had already encountered members of the Suppression Office too?

"No," replied Dr Teal, confirming Hamren's fears. "We have teams in Hamsterdam, Roma, Dortmund and a few other cities."

"Any more specific information?" asked Hamren demadingly, pushing the gun towards Dr Teal's forehead.

"I knew one team well, as I trained both of them before I left London to come here," replied Dr Teal. "The Paris team; two young Doctors named Shallow and Coldharbour. Both of them younger than Stapleton."

"Very well," replied Hamren. "Anything else?"

Dr Teal shook his head slowly. "Sorry, there's nothing else. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like an explanation as to who you are and to why you have held me here and killed my colleague."

"I think the fact that you work for London should answer your concerns over your colleague's death," replied Hamren. "But I shall answer your question. All you need to know is that my name is Piotr Hamren, one of the Carns of the Arkhangelsk."

Hamren had expected Dr Teal to be shocked by this revelation, but if the Londoner had felt any emotion, then he wasn't letting it be visible.

"I am here for the same reason as you, as we in the north also wish to cripple the traction cities. And while I feel as though our agendas are very much the same, I cannot trust a Londoner. And as we cannot trust one another, you are no longer of use to me, now that I have the information that I need."

Hamren took a step towards Dr Teal, who was pinned against the window at the back of the study, pressing the barrel of the gun into Dr Teal's forehead.

"Goodbye, Dr Avery Teal."

I took Dr Teal a couple of seconds to register what was happening.

"What?" he said, his voice rising into a panic. "No! Wait, I-"

BANG.

Hamren turned and placed the still-smoking gun upon the desk in the centre of the room as Dr Teal's lifeless body joined that of Dr Stapleton on the floor of the study.

"Skaet!" he ordered. "Do something with the bodies, would you? And Ravn! Send word back to the Great Carn let him know of the danger that the Suppression Office might cause. And send word to young Masgard in Paris. Tell him to be wary of two Engineers; young men that go by the names of Shallow and Coldharbour..."


End file.
